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Monday, August 19, 2013

Greetings cards – Creative literacy development tool for young ones

Greeting cards bring cheer to all of us. The feeling of
being remembered, loved and cared for is always heartwarming. As a mom, I have
found one more reason to be excited about greeting cards. Wondering what? Well,
they bring the joy of learning to my toddler. Watching how he has progressed
with alphabets making these greeting cards has been really special for me.

When he was a little over 2 years old, we started with
simple stamps to make greeting cards like the one in the image above. This
introduced him to the concept of greeting cards. The stamps with messages like
‘Miss you’, ‘Happy Birthday’ etc. helped him understand that you can convey a
message with greeting cards. He loved stamping away those greetings. I used
whichever stamp I found on sale. We even used other tools like punches to make
these cards. The ‘miss you’ card in the image below shows how he practiced
using a punch and even used the punched out heart shapes, to make a greeting
card. Using the punches at that young age, by the way, helps them develop the
muscles they will eventually use for writing.

As a next step, I got him alphabet stickers. To teach him to
recognize alphabet through play, I would show him an alphabet first and ask him
to look for it in the pile of the stickers. Soon, I could just tell him the
alphabet and he would find it. This also introduced him to the idea of putting
together individual alphabet to make a word and then a sentence. Using other
materials like glue, glitter, googly eyes, etc. was also helping him with
developing his fine motor skills. Not to mention reinforcement of names of
colors and creative thinking.

As mentioned earlier in my dot post, he recently started
writing. This has opened up a whole new arsenal to his greeting card making
skills. Now he uses stickers to decorate and writes his alphabet himself.

Sometimes I help him make cards in certain shapes based on the theme of his
friend’s birthday party and he can then write on it. This way he enjoys writing
and it works better than having him sit and practice writing as a drill.

I recently came across a book called ‘Back to front and
Upside down’ by Claire Alexander. This is a story of a dog who is trying to
make a greeting card for his school principal but can’t write his alphabet
properly. He is then encouraged by a friend to get help from his teacher to
practice writing. It is a great book to show kids that everyone needs help and
practice when it comes to writing. The illustrations will also give you some
ideas to introduce alphabet through play.

So who will you be making greeting cards for, with your
child? I would love to see what you make.

About Me

I am a full time employee as a Mom to my 3 year old son and teach hands on engineering and science to kids on weekends and otherwise. I am also required to be a story teller, an arts and craft assistant, cook, event planner, trip advisor, shopping and packing in charge, block builder, problem fixer, and what ever else my 3 year old boss might fancy. This hardly leaves me any time to be an engineer or training & development specialist that I used to be in my past life.